NBC News (4/28) reports on the differences between how US schools and schools in Singapore approach education technology, noting that “in Singapore, digital devices are increasingly viewed as a means to bring students together in collaboration, rather than separate them further.” The article contrasts this with the US, where students often use laptops or tablets “in isolation, powering through interactive worksheets and online quizzes.”
US Students Above Average In Problem Solving Skills
PBS’ NewsHour (4/2) reports online that the Programme for International Student Assessment has released the first results of “a new, international test of problem-solving skills given to 15-year-olds,” noting that the report shows that “American students performed just above average.” Noting that the test was administered alongside the “traditional” math, science, and reading PISA tests, the article says that when those results were released, “Education Secretary Arne Duncan called US students’ middling results on the traditional exams a sign of the country’s ‘educational stagnation.’” The article briefly describes the “open-ended interactive problems” on the test.
Krugman Argues That There Is No Serious “Skills Gap”
In his column for the New York Times (3/31, Subscription Publication), Paul Krugman that the belief that the nation “suffers from a severe ‘skills gap’ is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true,” but really is a “zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.” Unfortunately, Krugman writes, the “skills myth” is “having dire effects on real-world policy,” as there is little focus on “disastrously wrongheaded fiscal policy and inadequate action” by the Fed. Krugman says that by “blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate.”